Writing Chinese characters

The Chinese language is rightly treasured as the country's greatest accomplishment. Our language section introduces the historical and linguistic background that greatly adds to the appreciation of China. The written script has fascinated Western scholars for centuries. In the language section we include some introductory lessons, a guide to how it is written and some of the oldest classical texts.

There are a number of conventional strokes used to write, or more accurately paint, a Chinese character. Because the characters are traditionally drawn with a brush rather than written with a pen the pressure of the brush is as important as the movement of the brush. Many Chinese people expend considerable effort perfecting their technique. In the past, hand writing in the West was considered a good guide to character, this is still true in China. Some Chinese make a living from working as a skilled calligrapher. A good piece of calligraphy is a treasured artwork, indeed, many paintings have fine calligraphy written on them.

In the example diagrams for drawing characters we have put the main stroke in question in blue grading from the initial point of contact with the paper (dark blue) to where the brush leaves the paper (light blue). The other strokes that are needed to form the complete character are shown in brown.

The simplest stroke is the 横héng stroke. It is a horizontal line with the brush pushed down slightly at either end. Appropriately, the character for one (1) uses a single heng stroke. In Chinese this is 一yī, one of only a few characters made with a single stroke.

Just as easy is the 竖shù stroke. It is a vertical line with the brush pushed down slightly to start and lifted off at the end. Combining this with the héng stroke produces the character for ten (10) which is 十shí. The horizontal stroke is drawn first followed by the vertical shu one. It is interesting that the Roman numeral for 10 is X, which is a rotated version of the same form. They both probably evolved from counting off in groups with the cross stroke representing the completion of a group of ten.

There are two diagonal strokes: 撇piě and 捺nà. The piě stroke always starts at the top right and angles down to bottom left as the brush leaves the paper. One of many characters that include the pie stroke is the character for person which is 人rén. The pie stroke is drawn first followed by a na stroke linking to it.

The 捺nà diagonal stroke always starts at the top left and angles down to bottom right as the brush leaves the paper. Together with the pie stroke it makes up the character 人rén for person. The na stroke is started within the previous pie stroke lifting off as it is drawn.

Another simple stroke is just a dot or 点diǎn in Chinese. This is not quite a simple down and up motion, in this case the brush is dragged slightly to the right and lifted. Continuing with the numbers, here is the character for six (6) which is 六liù. Above the heng stroke there is a dian or dot.
The dot is drawn first followed by the heng horizontal line. In some characters the dot is drawn last.

The character for I is 我wǒ in mandarin Chinese. It consists of the radical for hand (手shǒu) on the left combined with spear (戈gē) on the right.
The 剔tí stroke is the last part of the shǒu radical part to be painted. It is an upwards and right darting movement to give a pointed end.

Appropriately we use the character for write which is 写xiě in mandarin Chinese to show the first composite stroke that is made in one movement.
The henggou横钩 is a horizontal stroke héng with a hook gōu on the end pointing downwards by lifting the brush off to the left. In this case the vertical stroke is drawn first and then the hook stroke; together they form the ‘roof’ radical. Underneath is the pictograph of a bird, originally this was specifically a magpie - a bird well known for collecting bright objects.

Just as the heng stroke can be adapted to henggou, so shu can be modified by adding a hook at the end to form shugou竖钩. So, the downwards shu stroke is terminated with a flick to the left to form the hook.
One of many characters that use this stroke is 手shǒu meaning hand. It is a representation of the lines that go over the palm of a hand. The other strokes are drawn first in order top to bottom; the final shugou stroke completes the character. This character is the radical in the 我wǒ example above. Most radicals have a meaning when used on their own.

The hook can be added to the curved wan stroke to form a wangou弯钩 stroke. The character 狗gǒu for dog uses this stroke in the first part. The wangou starts top left and curves round to vertical and then ends in a hook. The second part of the character is 句jù means sentence as well as being a rough phonetic; taken together the character suggests barking. You will find the dog as a radical in a whole series of animal related characters such as lion; cat; wolf and related adjectives: mad; fierce. Of historical and cultural interest is the fact that dog was often used derogatively about the barbarian people living outside China.

The 我wǒ character for I; me contains both a ti stroke and a xiegou斜钩 stroke. It consists of the radical for hand shǒu on the left combined with spear gē on the right.
The xiegou stroke is the first part of the gē character to be painted. It starts at the top and is then angled down and then right with a hook at the end. The brush is lifted off quickly to make the hook while still moving right.

The more horizontal ping stroke can also be combined with a hook to make a pinggou平钩 stroke.
One of the simplest characters containing a pinggou is the 心xīnheart character. It has three dots, the rightmost one is drawn first then the pinggou stroke and finally the two dian 'dot' strokes on the left. The heart radical is fairly common, and adds the idea of 'emotion' to a character. Characters for anger; longing; hearing and thinking all contain the heart radical. The pinggou starts at the top straight down and then curves left with a hook at the end. Some people call this stroke 卧钩wò gōu.

母 mǔ mother

Origin

Sometimes a box is painted with individual strokes around the edges, quite often two sides are painted as a single stroke with a sharp turn. The sharp turn is indicated by zhé in the name of the stroke. The character 医yī for cure or heal has the element shī (quiver of arrows; miss) in an enclosure.
The shuzhe竖折 stroke is the last stroke drawn. It is often the case that the sealing stroke is the last one made - quite simply in order to accommodate the variable size of the elements inside the enclosure. (See later section on stroke order). This stroke requires good brush handling technique to make a sharp clear turn - too often it can end up as a curve. The brush has to momentarily pause at the change of direction. It is effectively a shu stroke followed by a heng stroke in one action.

The most obvious box shaped Chinese character is that for mouth口kǒu. You might think it should be made as a single stroke but this is not the case.
Calligraphy avoids difficult upwards strokes, they are predominantly downward and rightward. The hengzhe横折 stroke is made with a horizontal stroke then a pause at the turn and then the downwards shu part.
The kǒu character is made with a shu stroke on the left, followed by the hengzhe stroke to the top and right; the character is then completed by a sealing heng stroke along the bottom. It therefore takes three strokes to draw it. The mouth or 'opening' character is widely used in characters relating to speech or eating.

The previous strokes can be combined together in a variety of ways, only a few examples are shown to give a flavor. A sequence of shu; wan and gou gives a downward curve with a hook on the end. A widely used character with the shuwangou竖弯钩 stroke is the Chinese character for 也yěalso. The stroke is drawn downwards and then curving right finishing with an upwards flick to create a small hook. The yě character forms part of the personal pronoun he or she他tā has the radical for person (rén) in front of it.

Another combination of strokes is piedian撇点. A slanting stroke from top right turns to leave a point. It forms part of the common character 女nǚ the character for woman which is often used as a radical. As a component it gives the female gender to lots of other characters. Its use often betrays historical negative images for women, so it is a component of jealous and anger but on a more positive side it is also found in good and peace. The piedian stroke is made first followed by the left slanting stroke and finally a heng stroke through the middle.

The final example of a combined series of strokes is shuzhezhegou竖折折钩. From the name you can guess it starts with a shu downward stroke followed by two sharp turns and a vertical hook. The ancient pictogram of a horse is brought to life with a few simple strokes in the character 马mǎ. A hengzhe stroke is made first representing the head and mane of the horse. The shuzhezhegou stroke is then drawn completing the body down to the tail. Finally a single heng stroke for the legs; in the traditional form of this character (still used in Taiwan and elsewhere) the individual legs were drawn as four dots (馬). As an ancient character which is widely used as a component in characters related to riding and travel.

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Finally let's bring this all together with a step by step example of building up a complete character with all its individual strokes. The character chosen is 永yǒng meaning everlasting or perpetual. It has eight of the fundamental strokes, and so it is often used in calligraphy practice - 永字八法yǒng zì bā fǎ the ‘Eight principles of yong ➚’. Some students spend weeks just writing this character .

The first component is the 'dot' dian点 stroke at the top. This exemplifies the normal top to bottom rule for the order of drawing strokes.

Secondly there is a hengzhegou横折钩 stroke starting at the left and turning downwards ending in a hook to the left.

Next following the general left to right rule a hengzhepie横折撇 stroke. It starts rightwards and turns round quickly and off to the left. It should just touch the previous stroke.

This is followed by a diagonal downwards pie撇 stroke trailing off as it just touches the center.

A final na stroke 捺 completes the character starting from the center, painting down before lifting off to the right.

Order of drawing strokes in Chinese characters

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Here is a rough guide on the drawing of Chinese characters. Strokes should be drawn in a particular order as this produces a neater look to the finished character. Following this order also helps avoid the possibility of smudging strokes. An important reason to learn the make-up of characters is that you need to count the number of strokes in order to look it up in a Chinese dictionary. These rules have exceptions, as all good rules have; in some cases you just have to learn the unique order for a particular character. In the examples we show the current stroke in blue (fading at the end of the stroke), strokes already painted are shown in brown and the strokes yet to be drawn are shown in outline.

1. Across then Down

It is generally easier to draw horizontal strokes and these are drawn first. They often form the top of a character and so give it an initial form. This is the number 10十shí that has already been used as an example of the shu stroke.

2. Left falling then right falling

If the character has both pie (left diagonal) and na (right diagonal) strokes then the pie stroke is drawn first. The character for person 人rén also already used above is an example of this ordering.

3. Top to bottom

Characters are drawn from top to bottom as much as possible, this avoids possible smudging. The number 3三sān has three horizontal strokes painted from top to bottom.

4. Left to right

It is easier for a right-handed writer to move rightwards when holding a pen or brush. The character for son; child儿ér is an example of this. It has only two strokes, the left one is drawn and then the right.

5. Outside to inside

To make sure there is enough space for the full character it is best to do the outer box first and then the inner elements. The character for like; together同tóng has an enclosed area for the two elements inside it. The highlighted stroke is a hengzhegou stroke forming the top and right of the box.

6. Complete last

The sealing stroke that completes an enclosing box is drawn last. This allows for some accommodation of the size of the inner elements. It is usually a horizontal stroke at the bottom of the character. Here is the character for country 国guó. It has an internal element which is the character for jade玉yù.

7. Middle first

If the character has a central, middle stroke that bisects the character this is done before the left and right parts either side. This gives a better balanced symmetry to the character. One of the simplest symmetric characters is the one for small小xiǎo, it has a vertical stroke dividing the two parts.

8. Dots last

In some characters the small dot (dian) strokes are added last. A common character in Chinese is the possessive article 的de where the dot is drawn last of all.